A proud product of the Chicago Public Schools, she graduated from Yale College in 2009 and joined the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

In Pittsburgh, she reported on race and poverty, criminal court and child welfare, among other issues. Her investigative series on injuries to children in state-licensed facilities, "A long road to a safe place," won the Anna Quindlen award for excellence in journalism on behalf of American children and families.

In 2011, she moved to Abu Dhabi to report for The National, an English-language newspaper. From 2013 to 2015, she lived in Muscat, studying Arabic and writing about Oman.

She is fully proficient in Modern Standard Arabic and speaks colloquial Gulf Arabic comfortably. Her accent was once Omani but is inevitably drifting into Arabish.